Dr. Brian HareEvolutionary Anthropologist

The only way to understand what it is to be human is to know what it is like to be not human. Evolutionary anthropologist Dr. Brian Hare will share research comparing the human mind to that of the bonobo and chimpanzee, as well as the minds of our more distant relatives, like the dog. Revealing the secrets of these species’ inner lives helps us understand exactly what it is about our species that is truly unique. It also helps us understand how the human mind came to be. Join Dr. Hare on a journey exploring the evolution of the human mind that will take you from the dense tropical forests of the Congo Basin to the steppes of Siberia. At the journey’s end, we’ll confront the question: are humans really as different as we think?

Dr. Brian Hare is associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University in North Carolina and a member of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, which is a division of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, founded the Hominoid Psychology Research Group while at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and subsequently founded the Duke Canine Cognition Center when arriving at Duke University.

He recently published The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter Than You Think with his wife Vanessa Woods. He is also the founder and Chief Scientific Officer of the citizen science company Dognition.com. Dr. Hare has shared his research in several NOVA episodes on animal intelligence and in the PBS series “The Human Spark.”